Commanding Officer Medal Groups

[Adam R]

USN Philippine Campaign Medal # 321 issued to Commander Alexander McCrackin. Cdr. McCrackin, a Civil War vet, was XO of the USS Oregon in 1899. He commanded a landing party from the Oregon that engaged Philippine insurgents and captured the town of Vigan.

[Adam R]

Contemporary print of the naval landing force going ashore to capture Vigan.

[aerialbridge]

Captain Allen B. Reed, USN, (1884-1965) was a graduate of the Naval Academy Class of ’04 that included William F. “Bull” Halsey, Husband E. Kimmel and Halsey Powell, whose DSM group Adam shared a few posts previously in this topic. Kimmel, Powell and Reed maintained friendships beyond Annapolis, perhaps in part owing to the fact that both Kimmel and Powell were from Kentucky and Reed was from neighboring Missouri. Kimmel and Reed were pallbearers at the funeral of their classmate, Powell, who died suddenly in 1936 at age 53 in Washington, D.C., where he had recently returned from sea duty to be reassigned to Naval Operations where both Reed and Kimmel were then attached.

 

During Reed’s thirty-seven year active duty career from February 1904 to September 1941 he held the following commands: USS Paragua, USS Iris, Captain of the Port, Balboa, C.Z., USS Susquehanna (ID-3016), USS Worden (DD-288), Div. 30, Dest. Sqd. 11, Battle Fleet, Div. 45, Dest. Sqd. 11, Battle Fleet, USS New Orleans (CA-32) (Plankowner), and Director, Fleet Maintenance Division, Naval Operations.

 

He was awarded the Navy Cross for his service during WW1. His citation reads, “The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Commander Allen Bevins Reed, United States Navy, for distinguished service in the line of his profession as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. SUSQUEHANNA, engaged in the important, exacting and hazardous duty of transporting and escorting troops and supplies to European ports through waters infested with enemy submarines and mines during World War I.”

 

In addition to the Navy Cross, Reed’s service record documents receipt of the Philippine Campaign Medal, First Nicaraguan Campaign Medal, Mexican Service Medal and World War I Victory Medal with Transport clasp. The record expressly negates the award of any foreign decorations. Reed commanded “bluejacket” landing parties during his qualifying periods for both the Philippine and First Nicaraguan Campaign Medals. In May 1905, as a midshipman and X.O. on the gunboat Paragua (that he later commanded as an ensign) he led a shore party with the ship’s Colt machine gun to assist the Army in the Third Sulu Expedition during the Moro Insurrection. The following month he commanded a 60-ton steam launch on riverine patrol to support Army troops. As a lieutenant and Navigator on the armored cruiser Denver, he led a 120-man landing party that was embarked at Corinto, Nicaragua for duty ashore from August through October 1912. (link)

 

http://www.history.n...st_exp.htm#1912

 

Pictured is Reed’s “top bar” group of three medals in “as is/ as found” condition. Missing are his Mexican Service medal earned during his time as C.O. of the Pacific Fleet torpedo tender Iris and World War I Victory Medal for his duty as X.O and later C.O. of the troopship Susquehanna. Susquehanna was one of three other troopships in a convoy with the ill-fated USS President Lincoln when she was sunk by U-90 on May 31, 1918 becoming the largest U.S. Navy vessel lost during WW I. (link)

 

http://www.history.n...-p/p-lncn-l.htm

 

In the photo of Captain Reed that dates sometime after March 16, 1927 when he was promoted to captain, he is wearing ribbons for the five medals mentioned. While I have not found evidence of an officially issued American Defense Service Medal, Reed most certainly qualified for that medal and it is a reasonable presumption that it was the third medal on his missing lower bar, meaning that both bars were sewn sometime after 1946 when the American Defense Service Medal was first issued. He transferred from the active list to the retired list in June 1939, but remained on continuous active duty, serving in Naval Operations as Director of Fleet Maintenance Division and then Special Duty as a member of the Executive Committee of the Army Navy Munitions Board; Assistant to Chairman Vice Admiral Emory S. Land of the U.S. Maritime Commission; and Liaison Officer with the Advisory Committee to the Council of Nat’l Defense. Captain Reed went on the retired inactive list in September 1941. (photo-link)

 

http://www.loc.gov/p...ce/fsa.8e10621/

 

During World War II, Allen B. Reed worked as an executive for a few ship building firms before retiring in 1946. In September 1944, his wife Bess was sponsor of the USS Torsk (SS- 423), a Tench-class submarine that is credited with sinking the last enemy ship sunk by the U.S. Navy in World War II when her torpedoes dispatched a Japanese coastal frigate to the seabed on August 14, 1945. Torsk was in commission until 1968 and holds the career dive record at 11,884. She is one of two surviving Tench-class submarines in the U.S. and can be seen and toured at the Baltimore Maritime Museum.

 

Captain Allen B. Reed and his wife had their residence in Washington, D.C. after 1930 and both are both buried at Arlington National Cemetery. (3 pages of photos follow this one)

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P. 2

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P. 4 (last page)

[JDK]

Bought from a fellow member.........sure wish I had the rest.

 

Lt. Col Warford. C/O of the 309th Fighter Squadron and 8 victory ace.

 

 

 

 

[JDK]

Warford 2nd in from left.......

 

 

309th just before Warford went down to Enemy Flak

 

 

Action Report of Warford being shot down and becoming a POW

 

[JDK]

This group deserves its own thread for sure at some point. Major Quigley. C/O 75th Fighter Sq./ ACE/ POW

 

 

 

[JDK]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots more to come on this group at some point. There's tons of paperwork, photos, uniform items, engraved wings, Dogtags, patches, 23rd DI's/panels ect.....

[Wharfmaster]

Fantastic medal groupings guys, thanks for posting. Does anyone have a Coast Guard C.O. group that they would like to share?

 

 

Best regards to all,

 

 

The Wharfmaster

[Dave]

These are my father in law's medals that date from about 1978 - one tour after his command tour on USS PYRO AE-24 (1974-1975). He served as executive assistant to a USAF LTG, thus earning the DSSM. He would later go on to earn two Legions of Merit, but he never mounted them (oddly) even though I'm sure he wore full sized medals when he was in his subsequent commands at Naval Weapons Station Lualualei and Naval Station Mare Island.

 

Dave

[aerialbridge]

On the 165^th anniversary of his birthday, here is a group of two campaign medals to Rear Admiral Edward D. Taussig (USNA 1867) who was born on Nov. 20, 1847 at St. Louis, Mo. and died on Jan. 29, 1921 at the naval hospital in Newport, Rhode Island. Adam R. has attributed these medals to Taussig with delivery in late 1908. Taussig was the patriarch of three generations of tough, outspoken naval officers who served continuously from 1863 when Taussig entered Annapolis until 1954 when his grandson, Captain Joseph K. Taussig, Jr. (USNA 1941) retired. As a newly commissioned ensign, Joseph K. Taussig, Jr. lost a leg as a result of injuries sustained on USS Nevada (BB 36) on December 7, 1941 and had to be forcibly pried away from his battle station at the gun director for the starboard anti-aircraft battery that coordinated seven 5” 25-cal. AA guns. Ned Bigelow Curtis, a pharmacist’s mate 2c, who disregarded Taussig’s orders to go below and leave him, instead climbed the foremast to the gun director that was under heavy bombing and strafing. With the help of others, Curtis got the injured Taussig in a stretcher and lowered him three decks since other egress was blocked by fire. Curtis was severely burned and was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions. In addition to the Purple Heart, Ens. Taussig was awarded the Navy Cross for his valor at Pearl Harbor. He was an undersecretary of the Navy during the 1980’s where he was known and respected for championing measures to insure sailors’ and air crews’ safety in the fleet.

 

Commander Edward D. Taussig earned the Philippine Campaign Medal while CO of the gunboat USS Bennington (PG-4) which he took command of in August 1898. While commanding Bennington on January 17, 1899, under orders from President McKinley he claimed Wake Island for the US.

 

http://query.nytimes...4DB405B8985F0D3

 

When Spain relinquished Guam after 200 years of colonial rule, Taussig took control in a ceremony on February 1, 1899 accompanied by a 21- gun salute from Bennington and became the island’s first American governor. After a few weeks, a permanent governor was appointed and Taussig and his ship continued on to the Philippines.

 

http://query.nytimes...4DB405B8985F0D3

 

However, on September 1, 1899 Taussig’s duty on Bennington was cut short by RADM John Watson, Dewey’s successor as Asiatic Squadron commander, who ordered Taussig home after Taussig openly disagreed with Watson on issues of fleet management.

http://query.nytimes...4D1405B8985F0D3

 

http://query.nytimes...4D1405B8985F0D3

 

Following, press reports that Taussig was requesting a board of inquiry into his being relieved of command by Watson because of Taussig’s “free criticism”, later newspaper accounts came to refer to it as a “misunderstanding” and reported that Taussig’s shore duty (as a lighthouse inspector) was temporary pending another ship command.

 

http://query.nytimes...4D8415B8985F0D3

 

Taussig’s vindication came soon enough when on March 6, 1900, Watson himself was ordered home due to the “delicate condition” of his health.

 

http://query.nytimes...4DB405B808CF1D3

 

In April 1900, Taussig was back on the Asiatic Station and in command of Bennington’s sister ship, USS Yorktown, where he served until May 1901 and earned the China Relief Expedition Medal.

 

http://query.nytimes...9659C946197D6CF

 

It’s ironic that but for Watson’s reprisal of Taussig that abbreviated his command of the Bennington, followed by an abbreviated shore duty before his return to sea duty on Yorktown, he might otherwise not have been in command of one of the eleven ships that qualified for the China Relief Expedition medal.

 

Taussig was also issued the Civil War Medal for his service while a midshipman. Following commands of the battleships Massachusetts and Indiana in the early 1900’s, his last command before he retired in 1909 was of the Norfolk Navy Yard. In 1918, he was recalled to active duty for five months during World War I when he commanded the naval training unit at Columbia University in New York. There are probably not many soldiers, sailors or marines who were entitled to wear both a Civil War medal and a WW I Victory medal, but RADM Edward Taussig was one of them. Taussig died in 1921 and is buried at the naval academy cemetery at Annapolis, along with his wife, a son, Paul, who died of appendicitis while a midshipman in 1894 and his grandson, Capt. Joseph K. Taussig, Jr.

 

http://www.history.n...-t/e-tausig.htm

 

http://www.history.n.../t3/taussig.htm

 

http://www.usnwc.edu...Collection1.pdf

 

Another of Taussig’s sons, VADM Joseph K. Taussig, Sr. (1877-1947) (USNA 1899) served on the USS New York as a midshipman (naval cadet) during the Spanish American War and was present during the decisive Battle of Santiago de Cuba. As a passed naval cadet, he served on USS Newark during the China Relief Expedition and in 1943 as a rear admiral he was awarded the Purple Heart for a serious leg wound sustained during the Seymour Expedition’s attempt to reach Peking during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Taussig’s sixteen decorations, campaign and service medals, include the DSM for an attack on a U-Boat while he commanded the first destroyer squadron to arrive at Queenstown, Ireland (his famous words, “We are ready now, sir” said to British Admiral Louis Bayly, when his squadron arrived), the Legion of Merit, the US Treasury Silver Life Saving medal, the British Order of Saint Michael and St. George and the Chilean Order of Merit. As head of the division of enlisted personnel at the Bureau of Navigation following WWI, Taussig invoked the lifetime disfavor of Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt and Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels when he testified before a Senate subcommittee on naval affairs against a plan to enlist parolees to fill manpower shortages and the overall lack of naval preparedness for WWI.

 

Taussig, whose extensive naval diaries were compiled in a book (“Three Splendid Little Wars”) and who wrote numerous articles for the Naval Institute during his career, doubled down on then President FDR’s ire in April 1940 when he again testified before a Senate subcommittee while commanding the Norfolk Navy Yard (his father’s last command) in favor of building the Iowa and Montana class battleships, resupplying our bases in the Pacific in order to defend the Philippines against the inevitable war machinations of Japan and decrying our merchant fleet as inadequate compared to Japan’s. Taussig testified that US defenses in Guam and the Pacific would be inadequate without a coalition of European allies to defend against Japanese military imperialism. President Roosevelt was furious and wanted Taussig relieved of his command at Norfolk, but yielded to CNO Admiral Harold Stark’s recommendation against it. Instead, a reprimand was placed in Taussig’s file. That reprimand was removed by FDR on December 8, 1941 the day after Taussig’s son was severely wounded during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

http://books.google....daniels&f=false

 

http://www.usnwc.edu...sigRegister.pdf

 

http://www.usni.org/...r-uss-langley-c

 

http://articles.balt...ss-pearl-harbor

[Adam R]

A beautiful and rare pair of medals, with excellent research on the recipient! The 1901 China to a ship C.O. is a prize.

[aerialbridge]

Adam, considering the source, there’s no higher accolade as far as I’m concerned. Thanks for that. These two campaign medals had probably been forgotten and unattributed for many years, until you professionally identified them and made possible revisiting and synopsizing the extensive, available service history of the recipient. As with many other medals in the collections of those who post on this forum (and those who don’t) the attribution credit goes to you and your many years of knowledge, skill and experience as both a collector and respected dealer. That credit goes along with gratitude from anyone who values the history behind medals that you have identified and/or researched.

 

Rim numbers and transmittal carbons for the E.D. Taussig PC and CRE medals:

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CRE

[Wharfmaster]

Any new CO groups out there?

[KASTAUFFER]

The medals to Taussig deserve their own thread!

 

Kurt

[Medalman90]

LtCol. John Victor Dallin, Army Air Corps, Commander in the Caribean and South America Durring WWII. Also Manager of Philidelphia Airport and Chief of Aeronautics of Pennsylvania.

 

 

 

 

 

http://dmairfield.org/people/dallin_vi/

[Medalman90]

and his Commision to Lieutenant Colonel....

 

[Medalman90]

Captain David M. Kulikowski U.S. ARMY: Field Artillery Unit Commander.

[Jack's Son]

RADM. Apollo Soucek.

 

[Jack's Son]

BGEN. Eric Woods Sr.

 

 

His Son.....1Lt. Eric Woods Jr.

 

[Jack's Son]

CAPT. Zino Briggs USN.

 

 

[Jack's Son]